Some are higher, some are lower.

Windows, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with 2 or more cores, 4 gigabytes RAM, 64 GB or larger storage device, UEFI, Secure Boot capable, (TPM) version 2.0, Windows 11 Pro for personal use and Windows 11 Home require internet connectivity and a Microsoft account during initial device setup.

Ubuntu, this link, https://documentation.ubuntu.com/release-notes/26.04/

2 GHz dual-core processor or better, a minimum of 6GB RAM and 25 GB of free hard drive space. For ISO-based installs, you will need a USB port or DVD drive for the installation media. An internet connection is ... not required for the initial installation.

No requirement listed for UEFI, TPM, or account with a company that the Human Rights Council and others describe as aiding and abetting atrocity crimes.

I can't imagine that Windows 11 would be usable with a 2 core 1GHz processor and 4GB of ram. It might install, but opening the start menu alone will fill up your memory (slightly hyperbole)

"Enterprise Linux 10" based distros by comparison cut out support for a lot of what they consider legacy hardware in current versions. Namely CPU must support x86-64-v3 which means AVX/AVX2 capable CPU only, whereas Windows (Server 2025) is supported, probably FreeBSD as well.

This is the first time it occurred to me Xubuntu and Kubuntu might be somehow unofficial. I'm not plugged into the Ubuntu community, so figured the flavors were offered by Canonical.

Why is the server version so supposedly demanding if you can install it without X/Wayland? Or can't you?

For instance, I installed Xubuntu on an ancient laptop (reluctantly ensured it was 64-bit, but that's it) recently and everything's fine.

I wasn't told by the installer to watch out or have apt choke or anything.

Do the servers really require 1.5gb? I've always enjoyed using super cheap instances with just 0.5gb of RAM at places like Vultr. I guess the new version won't handle those chores.

RAM is expensive. Didn't they get the memo/invoice?

Very likely, from experience package manager like dnf consumes about 1GB of memory just to fetch package metadata.

The dnf autorefresh service bit me running a small Alma instance for the first time.

Debian and apt seemed to require less RAM then, but that was a few years ago now.

Ubuntu Desktop has always been amongst the most consuming distros due to their reliance on GNOME

Even during the time when they didn't and it used Unity, it still was "bloated" in a way

One of the goals of Ubuntu has always been to make you feel like you are using windows. Seems like it achieved this in terms of resource usage:)